


Who Tells Your Story

by buttsonthebeach



Series: Hamilton x Dragon Age [7]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grieving, One-Shots, Past Solas/Lavellan, Pining, Romance, Sexual content in chapters marked with an asterisk, Smut, Spoilers for Trespasser, Vignettes, spoilers for inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-02-02 14:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12728649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsonthebeach/pseuds/buttsonthebeach
Summary: A place for my Dragon Age II one-shots. Connected to the rest of my series, but can be read on its own.1. "Who Tells Your Story" - Rated M for non-explicit smut. Merrill pined for Marian Hawke for years before telling her the truth. A retelling of DA2 from Merrill's eyes, focusing on her romance with Hawke.2. "Immigrants - We Get the Job Done" - Rated T. Marian's Fereldan roots grow deep, and she struggles to find her place in Kirkwall at first.3. "Cards and Letters and Stationary" - Rated E for smut. The morning after her first night with Merrill, Marian reflects.4. "Dreams" - Rated E for smut. Merrill has dreamed of Marian for so long.4. "Cold Hands, No Gloves" - Rated G. Merrill thinks nothing of using magic to warm her hands at the docks; a nervous Marian disagrees.5. "Adjusting" - Rated G. Merill fusses over Marian on the morning of her departure for Skyhold.6. "Legacy" - Rated T. Throughout the events of Inquisition, Marian reflects on her life and those she's lost.7. "Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us" - Rated T. Heartbroken Inquisitor Lavellan goes to Kirkwall to see Merrill following the events of Trespasser. Spoilers.New on 7/9/18 - chapter 3.





	1. Who Tells Your Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This summer, I finally played DA2. I had every intention of playing a purple mage Hawke and romancing Fenris. Instead, I slept casually with Isabela, flirted fruitlessly with Fenris as I watched him bounce back and forth between friendship and rivalry but never far enough down either track to unlock the scenes I needed, and mourned that my poor, diplomatic mage Marian Hawke would end up alone.
> 
> Then, late in Act Two, I flirted once or twice with Merrill, for no particular reason at all. She showed up at Hawke’s house, and I fell instantly in love. This fic and all the headcanons it contains were born at once. It is a mixture of canon events/dialogue and some of my own invention, and it does have brief smut, though not enough to knock it above a Mature rating. (Just skip to the next asterisk once they start kissing to skip it.)
> 
> This does have quite the angsty little ending with plenty of spoilers for Inquisition! It takes place in the same universe as the rest of my Hamilton x Dragon Age series, but prior reading is not necessary, of course.

 

When Hawke made the first joke about Merrill turning skeletons into toads for them and Merrill didn’t catch her drift, Merrill was certain she knew what to expect of her relationship with the human woman. _Oh, well. Another person who will think I’m a fool. Well done, Merrill._

But then those ice blue eyes shifted in an instant.

“It’s fine, you know. It was a stupid joke.”

Oh.

Such genuine words, and such serious eyes. Maybe this Hawke was kinder than she seemed.

Also, her name was not Hawke. It was Marian. Was it normal to call humans by their last names? Was Anders the last name of the other mage who was with them? Did this Aveline have a first name she should know about? Should she tell them they could call her Sabrae?

No, it was not normal to call humans by their last names. No one else Merrill met in those strange early days did it. Not her barefaced neighbors in the alienage. Not Fenris. Not Varric. Not Isabela. Not even Hawke’s tall, frowning brother, Carver.

“Is there a reason your sister uses her last name and you don’t?”

“Dunno,” Carver said with a sour twist of his lips. “Probably to remind everyone around her how special and important she is. She is _the_ Hawke, and not just Marian.”

“Enough.” That was a new tone of voice for Hawke. Flat, and dangerous. Merrill’s neck prickled. So was this the real Hawke? Not a jokester, and not the woman with soft eyes who said her own joke was stupid and made sure to come by the alienage every other day or so, just to say hello?

It took about two months for Merrill to realize that there wasn’t an easy answer to the question: _who is Hawke?_ When she was talking to Anders she was earnest, sincere, thoughtful, and, more often than not, worried. When she was talking to Varric it was all a quick back and forth, witty and frothy like a fast-moving stream. Hawke was often contrite with Aveline, a child apologizing for taking one too many plates of roast from the fire. Then there was the one time Merrill accompanied Hawke to the Lowtown hovel where she lived, and saw her with her uncle Gamlen - and if she had thought Hawke’s voice was flat and dangerous and searing as the summer sun beating straight through the canvas shell of an aravel when she spoke to Carver, Merrill wasn’t sure what to compare her to when she argued with her uncle.

They’d left quickly, of course, and gone through the confusing tangle of Kirkwall’s streets (which were no trouble at all to Hawke - she didn’t need a ball of yarn, she was not as bad as a child in the woods) to the Hanged Man, where Hawke ordered several rounds of cheap and disgusting beer for the two of them that made Merrill both miss dandelion wine and question how Hawke was ever going to get Bartrand his fifty gold pieces. And Hawke had demanded a new sailors’ song from Isabela, and they’d gotten the whole tavern singing it, and Merrill was left wondering once more who, exactly, Hawke was. Was she the woman who gently promised to find a missing brother? The one who traded quips with Varric? The one who mediated between Anders and Fenris when they got their hackles up like wolves whose territories crossed? The one who shrugged and said _we all have to make a living somehow_ when she spoke of her days with the smugglers, or the one who the one who dropped the last two gold pieces she had into Lirene’s donation box for Fereldan refugees?

And that was leaving aside the question of templars and mages entirely.

Merrill’s singular impression of her magic had always been that she was special because she had it. Special, and alone. One of only three connections to the ancient, beautiful past allowed to each Dalish clan. She knew the word apostate, but it wasn’t a word that she owned, that she lived. Not until Hawke. Magic was something to be treasured and protected, yes. But feared? Hidden?

“You should do what I do,” Hawke fussed, examining her staff one day. “And make your staff look like Carver’s sword. At least at a quick glance. I know the templars don’t come around the alienage often, but when you’re out with us in Hightown, or the docks, or even on the Wounded Coast - you never know who’s looking.”

“But, Hawke,” Merrill said. “Aren’t you always agreeing with Anders when you say mages should be free? So shouldn’t we - act free? Be brave? Like he says?”

Hawke’s hands went still on Merrill’s staff. Merrill might have been surprised - except that Hawke always went still at moments like this, when confronted with the mage-templar question.

“Just - be careful,” Hawke said, giving the staff back. “Please, Merrill. Be careful.”

That was a new tone of voice entirely for Hawke. Gentle. Tender? Did shems - humans - talk like that to their friends?

Or - was it something else?

“I think it’s because of her sister, Daisy,” Varric said when she relayed the incident one day as he walked her back to the alienage. “Bethany. She was a mage too, you know. She died in Ferelden. Darkspawn. From my understanding, Hawke felt it was her responsibility. Leandra - may have encouraged that.”

Merrill thought of Tamlen, and the poisoned eluvian. Then she thought of the tenderness in Hawke’s warning.

“So - you think Hawke sees me as a sister, then?”

“I dunno, Daisy. It was just a guess.”

Merrill filed that away with the other things she learned that day - how to haggle with the Lowtown merchants, how to find her way back from the docks, how to make sure she said _ser_ instead of _hahren_ to her elders. Hawke was quick and witty with Varric and temperamental with Carver and bawdy with Isabela ( _so bawdy_ ) and strange and standoffish with Fenris, and so thoughtful and patient with Anders, and if she was gentle with Merrill, it was only because she thought of her like a sister who was dead and gone.

*

It took years for that thought to bother her for the first time.

Years of watching Hawke drape herself over Isabela, or linger too long when she looked at Fenris (no matter how they argued).

Years of rambling all over Kirkwall and the surrounding countryside.

Years in which Hawke was so gentle to her, so patient, so understanding, so affectionate with her teasing. And when she did tease her blue eyes weren’t at all like ice - they were like - oh, why wasn’t she better with words? Something warm and blue like a favorite blanket - or a summer sky?

She spent a lot of time looking into those eyes, wondering what the right image was.

Wondering exactly how to tell her what the image was.

Wait - why?

And then one night, out in Hightown after dark, she recognized the feeling. The spark that ran up her spine as real as the lightning that snapped from enemy to enemy on the battlefield.

“Merrill, love, do you think you could carry the last of these daggers? My pack is getting full,” Hawke said.

 _Merrill, love_.

Her heart beat faster.

Oh, dear.

“Isn’t it a little undignified for a resident of Hightown to insist on looting every single bandit she kills?” Varric called across the courtyard.

“Waste not want not, Ser Tethras,” Hawke called back. “Not all of us were born rich.”

 _Merrill, love_.

This would never end well.

“Merrill? Are you alright?”

The nearby lamp was dim, but Merrill could still see those blue, blue eyes. She could picture the worried set of Hawke’s red mouth with perfect clarity.

“I’m fine, thanks, nothing to worry about at all.” The words came out all in one breath. Her chest was suddenly tight.

 _Merrill, love_.

“It’s a safety concern if nothing else,” Fenris said as he rejoined them. “If Hawke left all of these weapons behind every time she killed bandits, they would just end up in the hands of the next group she has to kill.”

“Or, worse,” Hawke replied. “I would trip over them making my way from my house to yours one night.”

That won a rare, low chuckle from the other elf’s throat, and Merrill’s face was hot.

Of course they spent time together apart from the others. They were practically neighbors now that Hawke and her mother had moved back into their family estate. It was foolish to wish that Hawke would come all the way down to the alienage just to say hello one night. It was foolish to wish for anything more than she already had. She was lucky to have a roof over her head, lucky she wasn’t dead like Tamlen, lucky the templars didn’t give her trouble, lucky Hawke - beautiful, clever Hawke - looked at her at all…

The feeling didn’t go away.

She’d had crushes before, of course. But they always faded when she acknowledged their impossibility. She was First to a Keeper, and her bondmate would be chosen for her in all likelihood, and she was too awkward and strange for anyone to love anyway. But this time, no matter how much she told herself it was impossible, she couldn’t stop the lift in her heart whenever Hawke came by and asked if she wanted to come along with them, no matter where they were going.

She tried to tell herself that Hawke wasn’t even interested in women that way when nothing else worked. It wasn’t how her own heart and mind worked - she’d always known that it was her duty to produce children for her clan, but she’d always known that she would fall in love with someone for who they were, and not their maleness or femaleness, and she’d stared equally at her kinsmen and kinswomen when she was younger and the tightness and warmth of desire were new to her.

The problem was that as much as Hawke made eyes at Fenris (even after they argued), as much as she offered him comfort and affection (no matter how much he turned it away) - she also flirted with Isabela. But that was all a joke, wasn’t it? Everything was a joke with Isabela. A confusing, dirty joke.

Then came the night when Isabela strolled into the Hanged Man with a new red scarf tied around her arm.

“Where’s the scarf from, Rivaini?” Varric asked.

“Oh,” she said, tossing her black hair over her shoulder. “After I fucked Hawke’s brains out, I found it in her armoire. It’s very pretty, isn’t it?”

It was never actually quiet in the Hanged Man, so a moment of silence couldn’t have followed, but all Merrill could hear was buzzing in her ears.

“You did _what_ to Hawke’s brains?” And that wasn’t what she meant, of course, she knew what Isabela was saying, she was just startled, but they would all just hear it as Merrill being silly again, of course - silly, stupid, naive Merrill who’d had years to get this stupid infatuation out of her heart but still, still, still it was there, because Hawke was a fierce mage and a good friend and so very beautiful and resourceful -

“Don’t worry, kitten. I left them mostly intact. Dunno how well she’ll be walking tomorrow, though.”

“Well, shit,” Varric said. “I had my money on the elf winning our dear Marian’s heart. It would appear I owe Anders some money.”

“Please.” Isabela waved him off. “No hearts have been won here. Marian and I both agreed that it was just sex. Maker knows that poor woman needed the edge taken off of her. Templar brother, disapproving mother, the Arishok and the viscount tearing her this way and that…”

Just sex.

But sex with a woman.

Which meant -

No. It meant nothing. Hawke didn’t look at her like that. She didn’t drag her eyes up and down Merrill’s body or wrap an arm around her when they sat together at their usual table. Isabela was worldly, smart, beautiful, confident, a human - all the things Merrill wasn’t.

So it meant nothing.

Which was what both Hawke and Isabela kept saying in the days that followed, when the teasing began. Even Aveline knew about it. She brought it up in her office, in desperation, when they were trying to do - whatever this strange human courtship ritual was between her and Donnic.

“It’s - not like that for Isabela and I,” Hawke said, as if Isabela wasn’t standing there. “We’re not in love. It was just sex.”

Just sex.

Why did that bother her so much?

She decided to ask when they were out on the Wounded Coast, clearing out bandits so Aveline could continue her strange charade with Donnic (is this what she was missing? If she wanted Hawke, did she have to do something like this?).

“You’ve had many lovers, haven’t you?” she asked Isabela when Fenris and Hawke pulled ahead.

“Fewer than some think.”

“But you never stay with them?”

“No. Why would I?”

Merrill frowned. Maybe it was different for Isabela, the way some people didn’t understand how she loved the person and not the body they were in. But she had to know. She had to understand how Isabela had her, had Hawke ( _Marian_ ) in her arms and let her go.

“But the act of lovemaking is so... intimate.”

Isabela looked at her for a long while, her yellow-brown eyes narrowed in confusion. Merrill felt her blush rising. Did she know? Was she that obvious? Could Isabela hear the longing in the word _intimate_ , all the ways Merrill had imagined Hawke coming to her, and the mornings after? Merrill had made love before and been left alone but in all her imaginings, Hawke never left, Hawke was there forever -

“I don’t ‘make love.’ What I do is only skin-deep, kitten.”

Isabela’s eyes went back to Hawke. She’d stopped on a bluff ahead of them, Fenris at her side. Hawke’s face was twisted into a frown. She and Fenris were arguing, then, probably about magic. She didn’t seem to notice them, and Merrill could study the soft wisps of her black hair framing her face, the ample curve of her hips, her pale hand where it was poised on her staff.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it.”

Isabela’s words caught her off guard. The Rivaini woman was looking at Merrill now, not at Hawke. Something serious in her eyes. What did she mean, don’t worry about it? Don’t worry about what happened between her and Hawke? Don’t worry about your feelings for her because it won’t happen, because look how Fenris and Hawke always paired off, the two of them, whether they were smiling or frowning? Pretty little head. Merrill wasn’t pretty and her head wasn’t little, it was full of thoughts and ideas and feelings and if only she knew how to get them out without sounding like a fool -

“There they are,” Hawke hissed. “Quick. Maybe we can hear.”

She had an excuse, then, to stand close to Hawke as they spied on Aveline and Donnic below. To hear the creak of the leather armor that made her look more rogue than mage. To pretend that at any moment, Hawke would put her arm around her waist, and pull her even closer.

“Oh, that’s it,” Hawke sighed at last. “We’re going down there. This has gone on long enough.”

Merrill lingered on the bluff, first to watch Hawke as she watched away, and then just so that Hawke would turn and call her name for her to follow.

“I’ll be there,” Merrill called back.

And she was there.

She was there to help kill the slavers who threatened Fenris, to watch him storm off even in the face of the comfort Hawke offered.

She was there when Varric killed his own brother.

She was there when Hawke brought Anders back to himself, reminding him of all he really was.

She was there when they tracked the crazed killer and saw the woman with Leandra’s face.

She was there when Hawke, who had an answer for everything whether it was diplomatic or sarcastic or angry, had no answers at all anymore.

She thought about going to the mansion. She really did. She couldn’t imagine being in that big house all alone. Grieving was communal, mourning a burden best shared in the firelight and close circle of aravels. She could offer that to Hawke, if only she could make her feet move from her Lowtown hovel and trace the paths she knew even without string, if only she could stop being foolish and afraid for once in her life -

Isabela went, she found out later. Even Isabela who was awful at sentiment, who did not make love, found it in her to go and see Hawke and offer whatever comfort she could.

Merrill didn’t know what to say when she saw Hawke next, pale and quiet. No. That was a lie. She knew what she wanted to say. They were the words she’d longed to hear from Hawke for years.

 _I love you, and you aren’t alone_.

*

It was in the wake of that awful loss that Merrill decided to ask Hawke for help with the arulin’holm. Hawke needed a distraction. She needed to get out of the city. And she was always telling Merrill that she could come to her if she needed anything. And Merrill needed this. Merrill needed to stop looking at her distorted features in the dark glass and seeing Tamlen, seeing death, seeing her own failure and weakness. She needed to see herself as strong. As someone who made sacrifices for a cause, for a purpose. Maybe then she would be strong enough to - do whatever it was came next. Tell Hawke how she felt, or walk away at last.

All she discovered in the varterral’s lair was that she was a monster.

That thought fueled her anger when she spoke to Marethari, when Hawke herself asked if the eluvian was worth it. Because which one was it? Was she Merrill the monster who would bring destruction on her clan? Or Merrill the sweet, innocent fool who needed everything spelled out for her?

Which did Hawke see?

“Take it,” Hawke said, holding out the knife. “If it helps you get back something you’ve lost - something all your people have lost - I can’t stand in the way of that.”

The arulin’holm was heavy in Merrill’s hands.

“I knew you would understand,” she said. She put as much false confidence as she could into the words. Later, back in her home, the confidence wasn’t false.

Hawke always understood. It didn’t matter that she was human. Just like it didn’t matter that she was a mage when she was kind to the young templars or to Knight-Captain Cullen. She’d known loss, and loneliness, and she understood, and all she ever wanted, above everything else, was for the whole crazy world around them to slow down, and be more kind.

Merrill told Hawke how much she trusted and valued her in a fit of confidence when she stopped by her hovel. Maybe it was the weight of the arulin’holm in her hand that brought it on - the knowledge that finally, she was not weak, finally, she had the power to make things right, to fix something, to be someone.

“What can I say? I’d do anything to help someone as sweet as you, Merrill.”

Wait.

There was warmth in those words.

More than usual.

More than friends.

Was there?

Hawke was only being kind. She saw how upset Merrill was. That was it.

Was it?

“You’re too good to me,” she said at last. “I don’t deserve you.”

Hawke smiled, and it was a sweet, promising smile.

Maybe the arulin’holm did fix things.

Maybe everything was fixed.

Maybe -

It didn’t, of course. The mirror remained. Massive, broken, useless. A monument to her failure. A mockery of Tamlen and of Pol and of Marethari and of everything Merrill had been raised to believe about herself.

She was Merrill the monster after all.

Except -

Hawke disagreed.

“It’s hard to imagine someone more loveable than you,” she said, the instant Merrill called herself a monster.

Merrill spoke before she thought.

“That’s so untrue,” she said. “I can think of someone.”

The moment hung between them like the afterimage lightning seared on her eyelids. Hawke wasn’t slouching in the chair across from her anymore. She sat up.

“Well,” Hawke said cautiously, rising. “When you do, perhaps you’ll have to tell me.”

Merrill’s tiny home was even smaller with Hawke gone, like Hawke pulled all the air out when she left. She wasn’t imaging things. She wasn’t. This was real. Hawke had come to her, smiled her easy smile, and called her loveable, and it was weeks since she saw Hawke and Fenris together, since Hawke got involved in that mess at the docks with the lyrium and Ser Conrad. She was a clanless Dalish pariah and a blood mage and a failure but if Hawke, who everyone trusted, who tried to see good wherever she went, looked at her and smile then maybe, maybe, maybe -

Merrill went into the trunk beside her bed, the one Isabela managed to steal for her when she saw the utter mess that was Merrill’s home. The one where she kept the little mementos of her life with the clan and without it. She went inside it to find her silliest, most indulgent memento - the black and gold corset she’d saved. It was meant to be for the night of her bonding ceremony, whenever that day came. She’d tried it on now and then, and she’d always loved the overlapping layers, the luxury of the gold thread. She needed the confidence wearing it would bring her. Yes - even the red sash. Her clan hated her but if she would go to Hawke tonight she would do it looking like one of the Elvhen, with her head held high. She’d waited for years for Hawke. She wouldn’t wait another night.

So she went to Hawke’s house and did what she did best: she babbled. Inanely. About all the places she thought of looking to find her. About how perfect and beautiful and clever she was, about how it was worth it, leaving the clan, if only because they met. She babbled the hundred thousand things she’d thought over the years, loving Hawke.

“I’m not some kind of goddess,” Hawke said finally, bemused.

She still didn’t understand.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Some people worship you from afar.”

Merrill watched the realization cross Hawke’s face. Her eyebrows lifted. Her lips parted. Her eyes got a little faraway, like she was replaying all the moments in her mind’s eye. Every time Merrill offered a space next to her at the table. Every time Merrill jumped up and volunteered to come along - to the Gallows, to the Deep Roads, to the Fade. Every time Merrill’s hand lingered just a little too long on hers.

“Merrill,” Hawke began. No other words came. Merrill felt light from her toes to the crown of her head, like she was opening her connection to the Fade, but she wasn’t. She was just waiting. Just waiting for whatever Hawke was going to say or do.

“Merrill,” Hawke began again. There was - worry? urgency? in her voice.

Oh.

Oh, she was trying to figure out how to let her down.

Hawke who always tried to see both sides, who was always balancing mages and templars and qunari and viscounts and right and wrong - she was trying to figure out how to balance this.

Merrill looked away. That would make it easier for them both. But then a hand was on her cheek, warm and staff-callused.

“It’s alright,” Hawke said, softly, and Merrill would never know what was alright - her, Hawke, the whole damn universe - because in the next moment Hawke’s lips were on hers, and she didn’t know which of them had moved first. She only knew that Hawke didn’t pull away, that instead she held her close and made a quiet sound of relief when Merrill kissed her again and again and again. She only knew that Hawke was all wide, soft hips, and shaking hands, that she inhaled when Merrill worked her fingers into her silky black hair and tugged, that she was breathless when they at last had to part, that even then she did not draw away.

“I have loved you,” Merrill said. “I have loved you since - since -”

“Oh,” Hawke said in the silence that followed. “I have been such a _fool_.”

“I know,” Merrill said. She meant that she had been a fool too, that she knew what Hawke meant, that she suddenly felt the weight of all those missed moments crushing them together, but there was no time for all that. Just for Hawke to laugh and run her hands along Merrill’s cheeks and shoulders and back.

“I’m sorry,” Hawke said between the next kisses. “I’m sorry,” she said when she accidentally backed them towards a wall. “I’m sorry - should we -?”

“Upstairs,” Merrill said. Her lips felt tender and bruised and her whole body was alight with mana and desire and she wanted Hawke’s thigh between hers and she wanted nothing between them at all.

There were no more sorries upstairs, not when Merrill took her by the hand and led her to the bed and pulled Hawke down on top of her. Well, there were one or two, when Hawke had to pull away to slip off her red robe, or when their knees bumped together as she came back to the bed, when Hawke put all of her weight down on Merrill because she needed, needed, _needed_ to grind against the hand Merrill had slipped between them, right to the place where Hawke was slippery, too, underneath all the coarse, oh-so-human hair.

“Maker, Merrill,” Hawke gasped. “You’re not even undressed yet - I -”

“Hush,” Merrill said. “I waited for this. I waited for you.”

Hawke came apart soundlessly around Merrill’s fingers. Just a long gasp, punctuated by high sounds from her throat. Her eyes scrunched shut. She was perfect.

“You,” Hawke said when she came down, when she brushed the hair back from Merrill’s forehead and kissed the lines of her vallaslin. “You -”

It wasn’t the night of her bonding but Merrill never felt more right in the black and gold corset, had never felt anything as sacred as Hawke reaching inside the matching smalls and helping her to her own slick, aching joy, had never felt anything as safe as clinging to Hawke’s waist as she came down, gasping, shuddering, the pad of Hawke’s thumb still wringing little pulses of pleasure from her, one slow circle at a time.

“That doesn’t have to be the end,” Hawke said in the quiet that followed, her hand starting to move again already, restless between Merrill’s legs. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. This doesn’t have to end.”

“Good,” Merrill said, breath already hitching. “I don’t want it to. I don’t ever want it to.”

*

It didn’t end that night, or the morning after. It didn’t end when Hawke ( _Marian_ ) asked Merrill to come live with her, or when the neighbors looked at the sight of them coming and going hand-in-hand in shock. It didn’t end when Varric gently asked Marian if she really thought it was a good idea to shack up with the local Dalish blood mage, what with her brother the templar and Knight-Commander Meredith being who she was. It didn’t end with the Arishok, no matter how much of Marian’s blood covered the floor of the viscount’s keep. It didn’t end when Marian was no longer Hawke but the Champion of Kirkwall.

It didn’t end when they had to kill Marethari. It didn’t end when the whole clan wanted her dead. Marian took the blame in public and held her through her tears in private.

“You aren’t a monster,” she reminded her, over and over. “You are my heart. You are my home.”

She couldn’t pronounce _vhenan_ to save her life, but Merrill knew what she meant. This human woman understood her and loved her better than anyone who had ever called her _vhenan_.

Merrill learned to make hearthcakes (or, well, Orana did) so she could have some piece of her past that was good to share with Marian, and she learned not to look at Marian as a goddess but as her partner, and it did not end there. It did not end when Marian commissioned her that strange white armor, pleased as a hunter with her first kill, insistent that the _thing_ at the Black Emporium told her that it was a design straight out of Arlathan.

“I spent so long trying to be something for other people,” Marian said one day, not long after that. “Now I just want to be the woman you love.”

It did not end when the Chantry was in pieces, when Anders’ blood was on Marian’s knife and tears were in Marian’s eyes. When it was Fenris’s blood on the blade of her staff. It did not end when they stood against Meredith and protected the mages. It did not end when they had to flee. It did not end when everyone else left, one by one.

It did not end when the sky ripped open over Ferelden. In fact, that was around when Marian got down on one knee and said:

“Marry me.”

They were wed in the backyard of their Hightown home. They’d been gone from Kirkwall long enough that they could sneak about with few questions asked - and all of Thedas was more focused on the sky than on the missing Champion of Kirkwall anyway. Isabela did the honors, claiming that being a commodore was authority enough, whether she was on a ship or not (her hat certainly was impressive).

“See, kitten,” the Rivaini said when the ceremony was done. “I told you not to worry your pretty little head.”

Merrill twisted the gold band round and round on her finger, and thanked every Creator that ever was for that cursed mirror, for the blood magic, for all of it - every last thing that led her to Marian Hawke’s arms around her as they danced in the moonlight.

“I am the lucky one, love,” Marian said. “To have the love of a woman as brave and strong as you.”

It did not end when Varric’s letter came, saying that Marian needed to come to a place in the mountains called Skyhold. Something to do with Corypheus.

“Stay,” Marian said. “The elves here need you. You’ve done so much good for the alienage since we’ve been back, keeping them out of trouble. I won’t be gone long.”

“And it won’t be safe, I know,” Merrill sighed. “Marian Hawke, when you come home, we’re going to have a long conversation about you and your infernal need to keep me safe.”

“Absolutely, sweet thing,” Marian said, in that sly, teasing tone that once confused Merrill so.

It did not end when Marian got to Skyhold, when she wrote letters about this Inquisition and their Inquisitor (a Dalish elf, raised so high by shemlen!), of the Grey Wardens disappearing and of Corypheus walking the earth again, not dead at all. Of the red lyrium spreading and spreading.

It did not end when Marian’s letters stopped arriving.

It did not end when Varric’s letter did.

_Six people went into the rift, Daisy. Only five people came back out._

_And Hawke - Hawke wasn’t one of them._

It did not end when Merrill had no more tears left, when her throat was raw and Orana was begging her to eat something, anything. It did not end when she had wished the Dread Wolf’s curse on every person she could think of - on the nightmare, on Warden Stroud for not volunteering himself, on Inquisitor Lavellan for not holding Hawke back. It did not end when Varric sent Marian’s effects back, when Merrill received an official letter from the Inquisition commending Hawke’s bravery and sacrifice in the battle of Adamant Fortress, written by some ambassador or another.

The truth was that it did not end.

Merrill still twisted her wedding band round and round her finger, not because she was unused to its weight but because she liked the reminder of their vows.

She kept Marian’s clothes clean and fresh in their drawers.

She read about the Fade, about those who’d walked in it and come out on the other side. She dreamed of a rift opening right in the middle of Hightown and Marian stepping out with a smile and a story.

She dreamed of that less when the Breach was closed and the rifts were gone.

But it did not end, because Merrill was still there. Merrill who was not a monster or a fool, a pariah or a savior. Merrill who was a wife and a lover and a friend. Merrill who was a better person for having loved and been loved by Marian Hawke. Merrill who would never forget. It went on and on forever, that story that began that day on Sundermount with an ill-timed joke about skeletons and toads. She was trained to be a Keeper, after all. She would carry Marian with her, until she returned or until the day Merrill herself no longer drew breath - as sacred and real as any story every spun by the firelight about ancient Arlathan, and none of it would ever end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


	2. Immigrants - We Get the Job Done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This comes from a prompt from the ever wonderful [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning), who suggested I do something with Hamilton and Lafayette's iconic "immigrants - we get the job done" line. I didn't manage to work in the line itself, but I still think this fits the spirit of that moment!
> 
> It originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/169386439066/writing-prompt-if-you-have-the-time-kirkwall).
> 
> This chapter is rated teen, but only for swearing.

As far as young Marian Hawke was concerned, Ferelden was the whole entire world. Most children probably thought that way - but she clung to the illusion long after childhood was over. Mother and Father’s stories of Kirkwall were as fantastical as tales of bygone Blights and Calenhad Theirin.

Maybe it was because Father never tried to move them outside of Ferelden, no matter how many times they had to run thanks to the sparks Marian and Bethany had flying out of their fingertips. There was something impossible about the thought of climbing the Frostbacks or crossing the sea, as far as her parents were concerned - or as far as she could tell. Marian accepted the reality of that. She liked Ferelden. She liked safe, solid houses and the smell of peat and the watchful stares of mabari hounds. She planned to live there until she died.

When they watched Lothering burn - when they watched that black horde march through the fields and hills they knew - Marian couldn’t believe it. She never asked for news of the Blight after that. She didn’t rejoice when news came that a Grey Warden had brought it to an end. In her mind the Blight had won. She was in Kirkwall now. The Ferelden of Bethany and Father and long cold nights with stars like perfect chips of ice was gone. It was absolute in its existence, and absolute in its absence.

It didn’t help that everyone and their Maker-damned uncle liked to remind her that she was Fereldan.

“Stay away,” mothers in Hightown warned in shrill whispers. “They’re refugees. They’ll kidnap you and ransom you to buy their dog some meat.”

“Say that again?” Lowtown merchants groused. “Fucking Fereldans. Lose the accent.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” she said the fourth time that one happened. “Maybe I like my accent.”

“You’re the one that wanted to come here, aren’t you? Adapt.”

_No_ , she wanted to shout.  _I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t ask to lose my home or watch my sister die or to smuggle goods all day long just to buy your shitty bread._

But Malcolm Hawke, professional apostate, taught her well.  _Be who they need you to be. Be who you need to be to get by._

The templars in Kirkwall were not like the templars back home.

“My apologies. You are right.” She did her best to make her consonants sharper, her vowels shorter and less round.

“Always so diplomatic,” Carver said when they walked away. “Don’t you ever feel anything that you can’t control?”

“Shut up, Carver.”

“That’s right. I forgot the same courtesy never applies to me.”

Marian felt plenty of things she couldn’t control or say. Like her frustration that her brother resented both Bethany and her for something they didn’t want. They loved their father but they would have given up every ounce of mana in their veins if it meant they could be a normal family, if it meant that they didn’t have to go hide in the woods and train for hours. If it meant they could truly share their father with their brother. But every time she thought  _now, now is the moment I’ll shove Carver against the nearest wall and tell him how unfair it is that he resents us for the thing that made us sick to our stomachs_ , she remembered her father’s lesson.

_Don’t draw attention. Don’t cause a fuss. Be who they need you to be. Focus._

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Carver looked away.

So she learned to dull down the accent, imitating her mother’s crisp highborn enunciation. She only took her mabari, Pigeon, out for walks in the early morning, when it was less likely they’d be spotted and taunted. She learned Kirkwall’s rhythms and forgot how to tell when the grain was nearly ripe. She stopped looking across the waters towards a shore she would never see again.

“So, what do you think of Kirkwall?” Varric Tethras asked the first night they sat down together at the Hanged Man.

Marian took a long drink of her cheap ale (they kept it cold here, even at the Hanged Man, the savages). She took Varric’s measure. Then she spoke.

“I think it’s a shit heap.”

Varric let out a long, deep belly laugh.

“And there you’d be right, Hawke. You gonna claim that Ferelden is much better?”

She read him again. The glint in his eye. She settled back into her worn, greasy chair. “Honestly? It’s a shit heap too.”

Varric raised his glass. “To the shit heaps we call home.”

She knew he understood, then. What it was to love a place so much you carried it in your blood. She knew meeting him was a beginning. She had an apostate’s canny sense for the way any given wind was blowing. She assumed she would meet more people like him, born and bred Kirkwallers, who would weave her deeper into this city’s life, until she forgot what it felt like to miss the sound of a Fereldan song.

Instead, she kept adopting other immigrants.

Anders and his murky origin was first.

Then Isabela and her hundred different ports.

Next Merrill - Merrill and her chosen exile and the ball of string that kept her from getting lost. (Merrill made her heart ache. All that need and those big green eyes.)

And finally Fenris. Wet with blood and hot with anger, Tevinter etched into his skin, handsome as the day was long, and already pissed at her for the magic flowing underneath hers.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I don’t like it either.”

He had green eyes too. He liked to narrow them, unlike Merrill. He was so prepared to see the worst of her - and his wounds went so deep.

_Be who they need you to be_ , her father said in her ear.  _Read the room._

She tried her hardest to be who Fenris needed. She wasn’t, in the end.

But she was what Kirkwall needed.

She saved apostates and killed blood mages, defended templars who hadn’t done anything wrong and lied to others, hunted murderers, found missing odds and ends, took on running a mine of all things. Not because it was what she believed in - she believed in keeping her head down, in living another day - but because it was what Kirkwall and its rotting heart demanded of her. Ferelden was gone as far as she was concerned, and the Marian Hawke who lived there was gone too.

Then, one day, seemingly out of the blue, she was what Merrill needed. (Except it wasn’t really out of the blue, except it was right there in front of her idiot face all along, how much Merrill loved her.)

Merrill of the big green eyes and the bigger heart.

Merrill who was nothing if not earnest.

Merrill who remembered Ferelden’s quiet fields - who reminded her, bit by bit, kiss by kiss, of the person she was when she used to walk through them, her father and sister at her side.

That was what she carried with her the day she faced down the Arishok. Not her father’s endless mantra. Not the acid tongues of the Kirkwall elite. She carried with her a nation of warriors, of survivors - a nation of justice - and that was what guided each swing of her staff, each blast of flame that she leveled at the huge, hulking warrior who would see her new home burn.

She emerged from that keep the Champion of Kirkwall, but every step she took from there on out was with that sense of surety in her chest. She knew where she came from. No one could take that away, however far she roamed.

(She laughed at the next shopkeep who told her to lose the accent. She made sure she had Pigeon with her the next time she went by, and her Dalish lover on her arm, and she made sure her vowels were big and round as a Fereldan summer sky when she told him he could kiss her ass. Isabela stole from his till. They donated all the coins to Lirene’s fund for Fereldan refugees. It was a good day.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


	3. Cards and Letters and Stationary*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another DWC prompt, originally posted [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/171911139891/for-dwc-cards-and-letters-and-stationary). This is a little canon-divergent for the Merrill romance, because with the way I envisioned it, Marian would never have asked Merrill to move in that night. They needed to take things a little more slowly.
> 
> This one does have explicit sexual content. You can stop reading once they get kissy to avoid it, and then read the last couple of lines if you desire.

When Marian awoke at Merrill’s side it was with a deep, cold dread. Like being at the bottom of a well. She knew what it was like at the bottom of a well because she and Carver and Bethany ended up in one once, although saying they’d “ended up” there made it sound like it wasn’t on purpose, which it was. They climbed down and when Marian looked up to see how far away the top was, and then down to see how small the twins were, she knew there was no way they were getting out on their own. Their father had to levitate them out, in fact, sweating the whole while, their mother keeping a watchful eye out for anyone who might see him.

“Don’t get yourself into situations with no way out,” Father said, when they were free, his grip hard on Bethany and Marian’s hands alike. Carver trailed behind with Mother. “Do you hear me?”

Merrill was still asleep, lying on her back, her lips parted. She was beautiful. Marian had noticed that before, of course. But in an abstract way. Not in a way that twisted her up inside.  _She is beautiful, and she is here, and she said she loved me. And last night I told her that this didn’t have to be the end. What does that mean? Why did I say it so quickly? How did Merrill take it?_

Hence the deep, cold dread. The sense that she was at the bottom of that well again.

Marian rose from the bed slowly and carefully, rearranging the covers after she left, tucking them just a little around Merrill. She stopped just short of brushing back her hair. She stood there a moment, and then walked out into the hall, working through her thoughts, trying to understand them.

She used to help Bethany sneak into the chantry in Lothering sometimes, and once they’d heard an angry sister declare to a mother weeping for a son who’d been taken to the Circle that not only was the tower his place, but that they should castrate him when he got there, just to be sure there wouldn’t be more like him.

“Maybe you and I should never have children,” Bethany said quietly on their walk home.

“That’s absurd,” Marian said, because she suspected it was what Bethany wanted to hear.

“It does run in families, though. Look at us. Look at Aunt Revka, and all of her children. It’s in the Hawke blood and the Amell blood. And there is some truth to what she said about the Chant of Light.”

 _It._  That was how they always referred to magic in public - and even, sometimes, when they were alone, as they were then, walking up the dirt path.

“But only some, Beth,” Marian insisted, pretending the words had struck no chord in her. “Imagine if Mother and Father thought that way. There’d be no you - and you are the best person I know.”

Bethany smiled at her then. Her smile always made Marian think of summer and sunflowers. Even now, standing in her dim, too-big Hightown house, where Bethany had never set foot, and never would.

That was some part of the dread. Marian protested that day, but privately, she doubted she would ever marry and have children of her own. She knew what the rest of her life as an apostate would look like. She did not resent her father and mother for that life - the running and the fear - but if she had the choice, she wouldn’t live that way. And she wouldn’t run the very risk that Bethany described that day. She wouldn’t bring a child into that life.

Of course, it did occur to her shortly after that decision that she might marry a woman, instead. Her first love had been a girl, a farmer’s daughter when she was fifteen. Wren. Marian could still picture her heart-shaped face perfectly. Maybe that was it. Maybe she would marry a farmer’s daughter with a heart-shaped face and they would adopt orphans given up to the Chantry - and Marian would live every day looking over her shoulder, praying no templars ever came to take her away from her children, that she never fell prey to a demon while sleeping next to her wife -

So that was part of the deep, dreadful feeling she had, then. Marian had never expected to fall in love again. And she hadn’t. She’d found several men and women attractive since then - she’d bedded some of them - but she hadn’t loved any of them.

And she knew, going down the stairs, replaying the events of the night before - Merrill’s big green eyes, the way she stayed so close the whole time they made love, the way she kissed her, savoring every breath - she knew this meant something. This wasn’t Isabela, who’d come in here like a hurricane, dropping knives and clothing left and right, never giving Marian a moment to think or feel anything other than  _more_.

And she wasn’t Fenris. Fenris who’d smile at her and shiver when their hands touched as they practiced his letters, and whose voice grew louder and louder each time she tried to defend the reason she’d let an apostate go or lied to a templar or took Anders’ side. Fenris who’d finally looked at her one evening, a month before, when they’d been saying good night and she’d sidled up to him and angled her face up, a clear invitation for a kiss that would taste like the wine they’d shared, a kiss that would soothe away the argument they’d just had about Anders and Justice, and said:

“It’s never going to work between us, is it?”

She knew they couldn’t pretend anymore.

Wasn’t that part of the attraction to him, anyway? Knowing, on some level, that it was never going to work? That he was too principled, too wounded by mages and magic, to really fall for a mage who never said what she was really thinking if she thought it would disturb the peace?

Marian paused by the table in the hall where Bodahn left her letters and began to leaf through them. On top of them was a note from Bodahn himself, saying that he, Sandal, and Orana had gone out to the market together. Beneath that: trash. Trash. A plea for assistance. A clearly false advertisement for some sort of - male sexual enhancement. Another plea for assistance. Trash. A bill she would show to Varric before paying, because he’d insisted on becoming involving in her finances. Trash.

Marian went through the cards and letters and let herself think, until the thought floated to the surface. Merrill was not Isabela or Fenris, and that was why Marian was afraid.

Because when she turned and looked at the front door that Merrill came through the night before, her eyes wide and afraid - when she looked at the wall that she’d pressed Merrill up against when they kissed - when she thought back to all of the moments she’d missed over the years, the way Merrill looked at her, how stupid she’d been not to notice - she knew this meant something.

She’d known it the night before, or she would not have gone upstairs with her.

The stairs creaked then, and Marian turned to see Merrill standing on them, dressed only in a long white shirt - one of Marian’s own. Marian’s heart beat faster. There was something guarded in Merrill’s eyes. Shit - of course.

“I’m sorry,” Marian said at once. “I didn’t mean for you to wake up alone. I was going to the kitchen to bring us some breakfast.”

_So quick to lie, Marian._

“Oh, it’s fine. I am an early riser anyway. Being Dalish, and all that. Always up with the sun.” Merrill smiled, but it was a weak smile, and her words were strangely clipped - not flowing and tumbling over themselves, the way they usually did. Marian’s heart sank. Merrill approached anyway, stopping a careful distance away from both the desk and Marian. Then she looked down at her bare feet, curling her toes in the expensive rug.

“Merrill -”

“I know last night meant something different for you than it did for me,” Merrill said, quick now, like usual. “Of course it did. I’ve been in love with you for years, Marian. And I know you aren’t in love with me. You said last night that this didn’t have to be the end but - if you are having second thoughts about me it could be.” She took a breath, and looked up, and her eyes were resolute, but there was something sad in the shape of her mouth. “I am sure it will take you some time to decide what you feel for me - if you feel anything - and that’s perfectly fine and I only wanted to say that -”

Marian took Merrill’s face in both her hands and kissed her.

Marian kissed her because it wasn’t Carver or Bethany that suggested they climb down into the well that long-ago day.

It was her.

Because under all the carefully manicured layers that Marian wrapped herself in now, she was still that child who knew an opportunity she couldn’t refuse - and leapt.

Merrill made a startled noise against her lips - but then she parted them, and Merrill followed suit, and they were warm and close together and the soft lap of Merrill’s tongue against her own made Marian’s breath catch. She fisted her hands in the loose cotton of Merrill’s shirt, shivered when Merrill’s own hands found their way to her back. They were both out of breath when they parted.

“You’re right,” Marian said. She kept Merrill close. “We are in different places. You got a bit of a head start on me. But I want to see where this leads, Merrill. I meant what I said last night. I did.”

Merrill’s smile was a little like Bethany’s. Summer and sunflowers and everything growing and new.

Marian kissed her again. And again. And again, through Merrill’s delighted giggles, as she pushed her towards the table and then helped her up onto it, sweeping the pile of letters and cards aside.

“Stop laughing,” Marian said, pushing the wide collar of the shirt down, leaving sucking kisses along Merrill’s collarbone. “It makes it hard to kiss you.”

“Maybe I’m just hoping you’ll kiss me somewhere else instead,” Merrill said, and her smile was wicked now, so Marian sank to her knees and parted Merrill’s legs and went to worship between them. She got her head underneath the hem of the shirt and saw Merrill there, already bare, and bit her lip against the flood of heat in her own belly at the sight.

“Here? Now?” Merrill didn’t sound hesitant. Marian pushed the shirt back anyway, all the way up Merrill’s stomach. She met her eyes, and then planted a kiss on each of Merrill’s thighs, right near those tiny, perfect whorls of dark hair.

“I think we both waited long enough.”

Merrill was  _noisy_  with a tongue between her legs, Marian discovered. And strong. She quickly got one hand in Marian’s hair and tugged whenever she wandered away from her clit. She broke out in elven when Marian sealed her lips around that pearl and sucked. But she didn’t come until Marian took one hand away from where it had been playing between her own legs, teasing her own swollen sex, and pressed two fingers up inside Merrill instead - and then she finished silently, except for a few high, needy noises at the biggest peaks, when her cunt was tight around Marian’s fingers. Marian felt her chest tighten, watching her come down from her high, seeing how her whole body rippled with it, how her mana buzzed and zapped around them both, just brushing against Marian’s own. She was beautiful, and she was here.

Later, in the kitchen, they sat together and had bread and cheese and cured meats, and talked idly, and Marian felt something settle into her chest. A little fear, maybe. But excitement, too, at the sight of Merrill in the morning, wearing her shirt, hair mussed, talking about what they should do that day. This was a beginning. This was something real.

Bodahn commented on the spilled mail when he, Sandal, and Orana returned later. She and Merrill hid their smiles in their tea, grinning at each other over the porcelain rims.

“I’m sorry, Bodahn,” Marian said. “But I’m afraid it may happen again.”

Merrill couldn’t stop laughing, and Marian found herself already planning new ways to earn that sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


	4. Dreams*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some short, sweet smut for my two favorite ladies. [Originally a response to a prompt on Tumblr!](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/175713824246/prompt-facesitting-pairing-of-your-choice)

Merrill had dreamed of Marian straddling her face, grinding her way to climax against her lips and tongue - had imagined her face slick with her pleasure, had imagined looking up and seeing the sway of Marian’s breasts - ever since she first started fantasizing about the two of them.

So for - how long had it been?

Mythal’enaste, she’d been imagining it for  _years_.

It was one of her own favorite ways to come. It was only their third or fourth time together when she asked Marian if she would let her do it, and Marian readily agreed (readily settled herself into the pillows, readily teased her tongue along every sensitive fold and peak, readily groaned when Merrill sobbed her way through her climax). She’d expected Marian to take her turn that night, but instead she’d left lingering kisses all over Merrill’s collarbone, and rubbed herself against her thigh, until at last Merrill grew impatient and used her fingers instead, leaving her Hawke a shuddering, sweaty, content mess at her side.

 _Her_  Hawke.

Her beautiful, clever, worldly Hawke, who always knew what to do, what to say.

Who never drew attention to herself, or asked others to do things for her.

She would give her this.

So she got Marian (Marian, her Marian - she was Hawke to everyone else) into bed one night, and undressed her, and held her tight and slid a leg between hers so they could grind together, sex to thigh, for a while, finger seeking and groping and whimpers and moans escaping them both.

“Oh, Maker, this is good - oh, I want to stay like this forever,” Marian said softly, her nose to Merrill’s forehead. She smelled like lyrium - they’d had a hard fight that day. It stirred things in Merrill’s blood. Her magic. Her power - her birthright. Things weren’t going well with her clan or the eluvian but she still had power, could still do good. She could still be a leader.

“I have other things in mind, vhenan,” Merrill said, rolling to her back, and giving Marian a sharp tug. “Up.”

“Up - where?”

“Just up. Trust me, arasha.”

Marian - clever, clever Marian - caught on rather quickly.

“Oh - you want me to - on your face?” Her lover was so rarely at a loss for words, but now she stumbled. Merrill ran her hands up and down Marian’s thighs, warming them a little with magic, trying to ease her.

“I would love it. I have dreamed of it, you know, so very often - and I know how much you want to make me happy.” Her sweetness was her weapon just as much as her magic.

Marian bit her lip - but she also made room for Merrill between her legs, and moved slowly up the bed.

“There. You can rest your hands on the top of the bed there. Sit a little lower.”

She punctuated the words with kisses on each silvery mark that adorned that soft, delicious inner part of Marian’s thick thighs. This close, her arousal was all Merrill could smell, and it made her own pearl twitch with interest, made heat pool in her belly. At last. At last. And it was better than she imagined - not even having to crane her head to kiss her lover right on her swollen sex. But Marian still wasn’t close enough - Marian would never be close enough - so she grabbed hold of her ass and pulled her down and forward until all of Merrill’s world was wet, soft flesh.

“Oh, Maker,  _Merrill_  -”

Merrill had never heard Marian whimper before.

Merrill took as much of her as she could get - handfuls, mouthfuls, of Marian Hawke - of every part of her body she could reach, of her wide hips, of her legs, of her ass, of her back - she took long slow licks up and down the crease of her cunt and she lapped at her clit until Marian’s breath was little more than a high whine - and it still wasn’t enough. She wanted more, more, more of her - and that was what Marian kept saying too -  _more, more, more, love, yes, fuck that’s so good_. And that was what thrilled Merrill most.  _She wants me. She wants more of me. I am good for her._

She held Marian when she came - held her up when all her weight sank down and she rode out of her orgasm against Merrill’s face, exactly as she’d always imagined. Except it was better, really. Because it was real. Because her jaw hurt and Marian’s short black hair was sweaty when Merrill pushed it back from her forehead and kissed her on the lips.

“Do you still want more?” Merrill asked quietly, still close enough to breathe her air, to smell her skin. Her heart pounded. That question was more terrifying than any demon’s, than any of Marethari’s, than any she had ever asked herself alone in the alienage in her empty house.

Marian smiled and looped her arms around Merrill’s neck, and pulled her into another kiss - a longer one, a more intense one.

“Always,” Marian said softly. “Always, with you.”

And Merrill had never been able to dream of something as sweet as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


	5. Cold Hands, No Gloves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another prompt response that originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/169116908886/randomnonsensedragonage-welcome-to-dwc-how). [B1nary_S0lo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/B1nary_S0lo#_=_) asked for "cold hands, no gloves" for my first Drunk Writer's Circle, which resulted in this sweet little moment between Marian and Merrill.
> 
> This chapter is rated G. Nothing but sweet, cute fluff set at the beginning of Act 3 here.

“This is absurd. I thought the one good thing about Kirkwall was that it didn’t get as cold as Ferelden. I’m getting on the next ship back to Highever if this goes on for one more day.”

Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, scion of the Amell line, was walking around the docks with her hands shoved under her arms and her shoulders hunched, looking like nothing so much as a sulking child who’d been told they were going to bed with no honeycomb.

“You could always wear gloves, ma vhenan,” Merrill said, pretending the words didn’t make her heart thrill, that the gleam of her new white armor in the winter sun didn’t make her smile as much as it hurt her eyes. (And honestly, how had that creature in the Black Emporium convinced Marian that it was a design straight from Elvhenan? Who would have walked around like this on a daily basis?)

“If I’d known it was going to be this damn cold I would have. Where’s Isabela, anyway?”

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon. Can’t you heat your hands with your magic? That’s what I’m doing.”

That got Marian’s attention. She turned abruptly.

“Merrill, you aren’t. Here? In public? After that display between Meredith and Orsino?”

“Who will turn me over to the templars? The seagulls?”

Marian sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe Meredith has been giving them extra breadcrumbs.”

“I’d give them fish if I wanted them on my side.”

That at least got her a laugh, but it was brittle as the ice in the water below them. Marian’s gaze was locked on the shape of the Gallows across the water. Then she shook her head and held out her hands.

“Stop using the magic. Give them here.”

Merrill would never, ever ever, ever, as long as she lived, refuse an opportunity to hold Marian’s hands. Even now. Cold and red and dry from the winter wind. Marian pulled both of Merrill’s hands close, all the way up to her mouth, and blew on them, her breath sudden and hot, and then rubbed each finger, carefully, and Merrill felt warm to the tip of each ear because finally, they were here, finally, Marian saw her, noticed her, loved her, pressed her lips to each fingertip.

“There,” Marian said. “All better. No worrying about the templars.”

“Your hands were the cold ones, silly.”

Marian tried to find somewhere warm to rest her hands in response, only to realize with frustration that the new white armor had precious few soft or exposed places for her hands to seek shelter.

“Who got you this ridiculous armor, anyway?” She muttered. Her eyes were on the Gallows again. Merrill turned her face away, and cupped both of Marian’s cheeks

“Someone who wants everyone to know who I belong to. That they shouldn’t touch me. That I am safe.”

“I didn’t realize Varric had such good taste.”

Merrill laughed, but she knew that joking tone. She hadn’t loved Marian Hawke from afar for years without figuring it out. Her lover was afraid. So Merrill sidled right up next to her, cold hands on Marian’s wide hips, her head on her soft shoulder, and watched the water, the gulls, and the Gallows. A quiet witness, and a reminder that Marian faced none of these things alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


	6. Adjusting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another prompt from [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning), this time asking for one character adjusting the other's clothes. This was originally posted [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/167624184716/one-character-adjusting-the-others).
> 
> Rated G, although Marian does use one mild swear word.

“That cloak won’t be warm enough you know,” Merrill insisted, fussing at the clasp of said cloak. “Honestly. Have you forgotten entirely what Ferelden is like this time of year?”

“Merrill, I promise that I packed the heavier cloaks. I don’t want to roast myself alive on the journey there.”

“And your best staff? And your good armor, right? The fancy I’m-the-Champion-of-Kirkwall set? You need to make a good impression on this Inquisition. Make that damned Seeker think twice about touching a hair on your head.”

Merrill continued to fuss, finding tiny tears in the cloak, and then rummaging through the carefully packed bags, calling for Orana to come and take the cloak and fix it, then looking out the window to check the position of the sun (she’d never quite adjusted to clocks), and returning defeated when she realized there probably wasn’t time to fix it before Marian had to leave for the docks. Marian, for her part, watched her: quick, fluttery, eager, anxious Merrill. Her wife.

“It’s fine, Merrill,” she said at last, taking her hand. Merrill’s own clothing was askew now from all her running about. Marian adjusted the blouse so it sat right on her narrow shoulders and tucked the loose strands of dark hair behind her ears. It had grown so much in their months on the run. She liked it long. She liked to wind it between her fingers when they kissed. Merrill only sighed and adjusted the cloak one last time.

“I’ll miss you, vhenan,” she admitted at last, settling into the embrace Marian offered. It was awkward in her bulkier traveling clothes, but Marian still tried to memorize every instant. “I wish I was coming with you.”

“You have nothing to worry about, love. I’ll have Varric with me. Since when have Varric and I ever gotten into any trouble?”

Merrill’s derisive snort was buried into her neck.

“We should go,” her wife said finally, stepping back.

“Any last minute adjustments?” Marian said, spreading her arms, affecting her best heroic pose, even though in the back of her mind she kept picturing Corypheus’s face in that prison in the Vinmarks. She’d memorized Varric’s letter about the fall of Haven. She knew what she was walking into. She knew what she was keeping Merrill away from.

Merrill smiled. “You’re perfect.”

“Excellent. Remind Carver of that next time you drop by the Gallows and see him. In the meantime - there’s a ship waiting.”

They held hands all the way until it was time to board the ship, and even then Merrill lingered at the docks, and Marian watched for her until she was no more than a small white shape on the shore.


	7. Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prompt from the ever-amazing WardsAreFunctioning, who gave me the best Hamilton and Dragon Age pun ever: "When they died, they left no instructions. Just a DLC: LEGACY to protect." It originally appeared [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/171712208171/prompt-hawke-when-they-died-they-left-no).
> 
> This chapter is a character study of Marian during her time with the Inquisition, ending in the events of Here Lies the Abyss. It features the death of 3 major DA2 characters (although not in detail), and is rated Teen for angst and swearing. It also features some background Ellana Lavellan x Solas.

Marian Hawke thought about many things on her journey to Skyhold. She thought about seasickness, drowning, templars, Seeker Pentaghast, Cullen, demons, Varric, Merrill (always, always Merrill), how much she hated salted pork - but mostly she thought of the dead.

She felt her parents with her on the boat to Ferelden. They’d made this journey once. They, like her, had the unfamiliar weight of a wedding band on their fingers. Ferelden was as strange to them as it felt to her when her ship docked. The land of her birth. The place she’d so proudly hailed from. She was a stranger here. She walked through the port in a daze. Had Malcolm and Leandra Hawke felt the same way? Still at sea, even on solid ground? Or did they have the certainty she lacked, every time she caught a glimpse of the far-off Frostback Mountains?

Would they be proud of her if they were there? Champion of a city in chaos? Apostate who started a war she didn’t believe in and then ran from it? The woman who went to the Vinmark Mountains to finish her father’s legacy and failed, as the green gash in the sky reminded her every day?

She lay at night under the Fereldan sky and missed Merrill like she’d lost a limb. Merrill knew these moods. She’d spoon up behind her an dkiss her shoulder and say:  _you are a good woman, vhenan. I would not love you if you weren’t._  Alone, Marian couldn’t believe the words. She couldn’t imagine her parents’ voices, either, saying the words she wanted:  _we are proud of you, Marian._

She wanted to shout at them sometimes, imagining their disappointed frowns:  _you died and left no instructions. What was I supposed to do? Die too?_

Even to herself, the words felt empty as the blankets of snow covering the mountains.

*

Inquisitor Ellana Lavellan was nothing like Merrill, though  maybe it was a little silly of Marian to expect that she would be, as if all Dalish were the same. The Inquisitor had an aloof, watchful air about her, a quiet poise so unlike Merrill’s bright and open nature. She was not rude - but Marian didn’t see her smile until after they met up in the Western Approach, after they faced the Wardens at the ritual tower. Her Warden companion told a story about their elven mage taking him for all he had in a game of Diamondback.

“I was left with nothing but a bucket for my bits,” Blackwall swore, and Lavellan’s laughter was a sound as warm as the desert sun.

It was probably a good thing that Lavellan was a serious sort in general, though. The mark snapping in her hand was serious. The Venatori were serious. The Wardens were serious.

The Western Approach was so alien that it may as well have been another world. That was helpful, at first. It wasn’t familiar enough to have ghosts. Not until after the events at the ritual tower.

“Blood magic is never justified.”

She heard the words in her own voice and then felt them in her chest. In the smooth metal wedding band on her left hand. In the memory of her father’s voice, and that failed prison in the Vinmarks. She’d never used blood magic herself. But did she not love people who did?

That night she lay on her bedroll on the sand and reminded herself that even Merrill used it less, after the Chantry explosion. After seeing what Orsino became. She reminded herself that she had never exactly approved of Merrill using it in the first place - even if she never vocalized her disapproval.

But that night the Approach was haunted, and it was Fenris’s voice she heard over and over again. The low, gravelly tone that always made her shiver, that she used to long to hear in her own ear, late at night. She used to think she would, someday. That they would overcome their differences. That the balance would tip in favor of more shy siles and fewer heated arguments. That she could convince him that magic hadn’t spoiled either of them. Maybe then she would have been able to convince herself.

Because she could admit that, now, years later and hundreds of miles away, under a foreign sky. It was always why his rebukes stung. Because she was not a proud apostate like Anders. Because she always wondered if he was right.

He was with her so clearly that night that she left her bedroll, as if standing could shake him off. She knew what he would have said if he was at the ritual tower that day, if he watched her disavow blood magic with one breath and then tell stories of the blood mage wife she loved more than breath and bone. He would turn to her as he had that day not long before the Chantry explosion, when they argued one last time about the way she always played both sides, ever the diplomat.

“If you stand for nothing, Marian, what will you fall for?”

It was the only time he ever called her by her first name, and though she did not love him anymore - perhaps had never loved him - it made her heart leap. She would never forget the look in his eyes when she said she would not annul the Circle, even as Anders’ blood was still hot on her shaking hand.

“Now you take a stand,” he said, both grim and surprised. “And I cannot stand with you.”

At least Marian wasn’t the one who killed him. Aveline dealt that blow (even if it was her own swift burst of ice that locked his feet in place just long enough).

“Why couldn’t he just listen?” Aveline asked when it was done. “Why couldn’t he just walk away?”

“It was him, or us,” Marian said, even as her heart pounded, even as she looked away. “He would have said the same about us if he was standing here and we were dead on the ground.”

Aveline turned to her sharply. “That was cold, Hawke.”

It was.

But hadn’t that been the arithmetic of her life all along? Them, or me. Them, or me. She never fought for ideals but for survival. Wasn’t that Malcolm Hawke’s most enduring lesson? Survive. Weren’t those the words pounding through her head when she stood there, Anders on his knees, the knife in her hand -  _it’s him or me, and the world will never be the same_  - and wasn’t she right? Wouldn’t they have turned on her if she let him go? On Merrill?

“Can’t sleep?”

Lavellan’s voice, low and quiet though it was, startled her. The elf made a pacifying gesture.

“Sorry. I only wanted to make sure you were alright. It gets cold out here.”

She had a blanket on her hand, and that moment crystallized everything Marian knew about Inquisitor Ellana Lavellan - everything she read in Varric’s letters, everything she heard on the road and at Skyhold. She had a mark on her hand that could seal the sky and she had faced a god at Haven and she shifted the fate of the Orlesian empire at Halamshiral, and she was serious and aloof at first - but she was also the sort of woman who thought she could fix the world one blanket at a time.

“That’s kind of you,” Marian said, taking the blanket. Ellana smiled, though it showed more in her eyes than her mouth.

“It’s the least I can do to thank you for all you have done for the Inquisition. You’ve run all over half of Thedas for us. I am sure you miss your wife terribly.”

Marian imagined Merrill coming to Skyhold, meeting the Inquisitor. Maybe they would get along.

“I do. But she is safer in Kirkwall - words I never thought I’d say, frankly.”

Ellana laughed. “From Varric and Cullen’s stories, I have to admit that I am surprised too. We got an invitation to the Black Emporium, I think. Maybe we’ll end up in Kirkwall eventually.”

“Don’t mention me to Xenon if you go. I think I may still owe him money for that white Elvhen armor I bought for Merrill.”

This - the laughter, the ease - this was what most people saw of Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall. She hoped it would be what Ellana Lavellan remembered of her. She would not let her in further. She knew it, in that moment, standing there under the desert moons. She liked Ellana. She wanted to preserve that she was Hawke - hero, champion, and a good woman. Not that woman who killed two of her friends because she herself was afraid to die.

*

When they got back to Skyhold, lumber and stone from Inquisition quarries and logging stands had arrived, and Lavellan ordered an infirmary built in the keep’s courtyard. It was there, calling on the spirits to heal the sick and wounded, feeling calm, at peace, and useful, that Marian found herself haunted by Anders.

He was her first friend in Kirkwall, other than her own family and Aveline. He was the one who noticed her knack for simple healing spells and pulled her aside and taught her to listen for the whisper of spirits who would channel their light through her and mend what seemed unmendable. He was the first person who made the Fade beautiful to her.

“This is the true danger of the Circles,” he said one night shortly after they met. They’d opened a small cask of Fereldan beer and were sharing it in his Darktown quarters. “You’ve never even been in one, and yet you’ve put yourself in one in your mind.”

Part of her wanted to argue at the time. Who was he to tell her how to feel about who she was? But she reminded herself to be practical. They were going to the Deep Roads. They needed him. She demurred.

But she started to like the way she felt around him, eventually. Even flirted once, more as a joke than anything else. He was not joking. There was a raw edge in his voice when he said:

“I would drown this world in blood to keep you safe.”

That was the end of the teasing flirts. Anders was series. Principled. Carrying a literal embodiment of the principle of Justice around in his skull. Marian was not. She was just an ordinary apotate trying to keep her head down and provide for her family.

They stayed good friends, though. Right until the moment the Chantry exploded. Until she took her knife and split his throat clean open.  _Him or me. Him or me. He wanted this. He forced my hand_. She knew in that instant what Fenris meant. She stood for nothing. She played along with Anders year after year. She helped him get the fucking sela petrae. And now - now -

She regretted killing Anders the instant he fell. She did not regret turning and fighting Meredith or saving the Circle from sharing his fate. It was what he would have wanted. If he was dead, at least it was for a reason. If there was a Maker, and Anders was at his side, he understood that. That was why, when the balf elf mage - Solas - approached her one day and commented on her unusual aptitude as a spirit healer, she had no problem saying:

“Thank you. A very dear friend taught me.”

“I take it this is the same friend who later destroyed Kirkwall’s Chantry to great effect.”

So he’d read _The Tale of the Champion_. She steeled her tone just a little.

“Yes, though I hardly see how that is related.”

Solas made a small bow. “I intended no offense. It was only an observation. He must have been quite skilled himself, if he was your teacher.”

“He was.”

He regarded her for a moment. She raised her eyebrows.

“Is there something I can help you with, messere?”

“No. It is simply interesting to interact with someone out of a tale. It does not happen every day. I apologize if I disturbed you, Serah Hawke.”

It was an odd encounter. Marian paid more attention to him after it - and had plenty of time to, once they were all bound for Adamant Fortress. She realized, finally, why he bothered her so, after she watched a group of Orlesian soldiers refer to him repeatedly as the Inquisitor’s elven manservant while he politely - repeatedly - corrected them. He, too, wore a mask. Just like her. There was something else, too, beneath all of that calm, that polite distance. She distrusted him at once. She would not trust herself, either.

But then they went out - her, Lavellan, her Qunari and Tevene companions Bull and Dorian, and Solas - to deal with a rift away from the main body of the army. It was nice to focus on ice, fire, and then the deep, deep calm of calling on a spirit to help her heal them all, instead of on the swirl of her thoughts. Closing the rift seemed to take something essential out of Lavellan, though. She sagged to the ground when it was done, cradling her left hand. Solas was at her side immediately, brows drawn with worry. That wasn’t so surprising. He was their Fade expert. What was surprising was when he stood and offered her his hand, and she leaned on him a little as they walked past - and how Marian just heard her murmuring -

“Ma serannas, vhenan.”

That stunned her like a bolt of Merrill’s lightning, and she missed her wife with a searing pain, and she was shocked she hadn’t noticed before. They were cautious, yes, but there were signs. Glances. And when she really watched Solas, she saw the places where his mask slipped around her. The fondness in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

She added the story to Merrill, telling her she had to keep it a secret (though Varric told her later that it wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret - he’d seen them kissing at Halamshiral apparently). She thought a little differently of both of them now - though exactly how she couldn’t say.

*

Of course they ended up in the fucking Fade.

“Well, Hawke, we really screwed up this time, winding up here,” Varric said the day they arrived at Adamant, but he didn’t come through with them. It had been her, Stroud, Lavellan, Solas, Seeker Pentaghast, and the Iron Bull on that bridge.

Hawke wished for Varric’s presence as they waded through the ethereal swamp, as they fought the demons that never seemed to wane. Right down to the so-called “little fears” who always had Bethany’s face. Her mother’s. Her father’s. Fenris’s. Anders’. She killed them all, over and over again.

Varric would know what to say. He would know how to weave a story out of it so it all made sense. He would know that even though she stayed calm and cool when the great nightmare spoke to her, she was shaking inside. Of course the demon was right. Of course she would lose everyone she loved. Of course she was a failure. Of course, of course, of course.

But something else happened in the Fade, besides the confirmation of everything she already knew - Ellana Lavellan began to soothe the fears of dreamers.

Marian hadn’t even realized such a thing was possible, for all her knowledge of the Fade. It wasn’t like what they did for Feynriel. But there they were, taking a vial of darkspawn blood to a frightened Warden, a candle to someone afraid of the dark, destroying a tarot card for someone afraid of destiny - and, then, finally, bringing a stuffed animal to a child afraid of monsters.

“There,” Lavellan said when it was done, like things were settled forever, like she hadn’t just learned the truth of what happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, like their survival wasn’t entirely on her shoulders.

The whole time, some part of Marian was screaming that they needed to run, that the dreamers would be fine on their own. At that moment, that part of her fell silent. She took a long look at the Inquisitor - and she saw Bethany’s kindness. Fenris and Anders and their principles. Her parents - the strangers alone on a foreign shore, their faces turned towards the future.

Marian was no longer quite so afraid after that.

And that was why she knew.

That was why she knew she had to stay when the Nightmare reared, when it bared its fangs, when its hundred hundred eyes watched them all.

Because it wasn’t about her own survival anymore. It wasn’t about mages and templars or just getting by.

It was about the legacy of all the people who haunted her - about standing for them and not for herself.

“Go,” she said. Her voice was harsh but her whole body was light. She would be the hero everyone said she was now. Every weight she’d ever carried was already lifted from her - except for one.

“Tell Merrill I’m sorry.”

It was the last lie she would tell.

Because she wasn’t sorry.

All of those years keeping her head down, choosing  _me_  over  _them_  - they were over now. Marian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, met the nightmare with her head held high, and the strength of those she’d loved and lost in her arms, and she was not afraid. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


	8. Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted [here on Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/post/167099500616/prompt-tomorrow-theyll-more-of-us-wisdom) as a response to a prompt from the ever-wonderful and talented [WardsAreFunctioning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WardsAreFunctioning/pseuds/WardsAreFunctioning).
> 
> It is told from the POV of my Inquisitor, Ellana Lavellan, and features some lyrics from "Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us" as dialogue. If you want to read more about Solas and Ellana, check out the other fics in the series!

The Hawke estate was only a few doors away from Ellana’s own estate (a word that didn’t feel any more real than it had the year before at the Winter Palace). That was Varric’s supposed reason for why she should walk down and introduce herself to Merrill.

“It would be good, right? You two being neighborly? Good for both of you.” Varric said the words with a smile but something was missing from his bluster. He’d gotten grayer in the year since he became viscount.

Ellana knew what he wanted. Varric fussed. He fussed over everyone. And right now he saw an opportunity to ease his own worries. Instead of fussing over her and Merrill separately, he could nudge them together and hope they would take care of each other.

“I’m not staying long, Varric,” Ellana reminded him. She was on her way to meet with Dorian in Tevinter. Kirkwall was just a small stopover - a week at most for rest and resupply and to check in with Inquisition agents spread throughout the Free Marches.

“I know,” Varric said. “But - at least say hi for me, would you? She’s a big fan of yours, you know. You’re the most famous Dalish elf since - well, ever.”

“Yes. The most famous bare-faced Dalish elf in all of Thedas. Did you ever mention that to her?” Ellana didn’t ask the other question on the tip of her tongue.  _ Did you tell her about Solas? About Fen’Harel? _ Rumors were spreading, of course. But rumors were one thing. Hearing the bald truth from a friend was another.  _ Just one more thing the Dalish got wrong _ .

“I mean, it’s in the book. Not sure how much she’s read, though. It - that part is after Adamant.”

Ellana looked away at the name. She let a breath out through her nose. “I’ll go, Varric. I will. I owe you that much. I owe her that much.”

“Thank you.” His voice was quiet and sincere.

So she went down to the Hawke estate the next day and the servant - Orana - directed her to the library and Ellana finally met the woman whose wife she’d left to die in the Fade.

“Mistress,” Orana said when they entered. Merrill looked up from her book and Ellana was struck at once by the brilliant green of her eyes. “Inquisitor Ellana Lavellan is here.”

“Just Ellana,” she corrected at once, reflexively, with a vague wave of her hand.

“Oh,” Merrill said. She stared, then recollected herself with a rapid blink of those big eyes. “Thank you, Orana.”

Orana bowed and slipped away, and they were alone.

“I’m sorry,” Merrill said when the door closed. She set her book down. “I didn’t know you were coming. Varric said you were here but not that you would come for a visit.”

“Of course I came,” Ellana said. But what kind of a foolish thing was that to say?  _ Of course. _ Like they were old friends. Her left arm ached today. Phantom pain. “I heard so much about you. From Varric and from -”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She didn’t even want to say her name.

“From Marian,” Merrill finished. The name flowed beautifully off her tongue. Her Dalish accent made it sound rich and exotic.

“Yes. From Hawke.”

Merrill smiled, but she didn’t show her teeth. She rose from the chair and crossed the distance between them, and hugged Ellana tight. The gesture caught her so off guard that she didn’t even have time to offer the awkward, one-armed hug that counted as an embrace for her lately. Merrill didn’t seem to mind. She put her hands on Ellana’s shoulders when she stepped back.

“You’re shorter than I thought,” Merrill said, her tone thoughtful. A laugh escaped Ellana.

“Sorry to disappoint, I guess.”

“No, no,” Merrill said quickly. “I like it, actually. The Inquisitor is just my size. It’s a nice thought.” She cocked her head, searching Ellana’s face for something. “But - I thought you had vallaslin. Did Varric get that wrong? He always gets mine wrong. In one chapter of the  _ Tale of the Champion _ he says I have Elgar’nan’s and in another he says it’s Mythal. Though I suppose it’s unfair since my birth clan does Sylaise’s marks a little differently than everyone else, but don’t you think he could at least get the name right?”

Ellana’s heart ached to hear Merrill speak. She was exactly as Hawke described. Fluttery, unfocused, and so unendingly kind.

“June,” she said when Merrill stopped. “I was marked for June.”

“Oh,” Merrill said. “Was? What happened?”

Ellana’s throat constricted, thinking of the cool glade in Crestwood, the warmth of Solas’s hands and lips - of the mosaics in the Crossroads.

“It’s a bit of a story.”

“Oh. I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to pry. I suppose I shouldn’t ask why you don’t sound very Dalish, either.”

Another laugh escaped Ellana. That explanation was at least simpler. Her city elf parents never gained the Dalish lilt in all the years they lived with the clan, and her own speech was molded by theirs. She did sound Dalish sometimes - she could play up one accent or the other if she chose - but these last four years spent amongst human nobles, trying her hardest to seem  _ palatable _ to them, hadn’t helped.

“I don’t feel very Dalish anymore, to be honest.”

Ellana hadn’t meant to let the words slip out. But Merrill’s big green eyes softened, and she took Ellana’s hand and pressed it between both of hers.

“I know what you mean, lethallan.”

They ended up going for a walk in Hightown. They were both practiced in ignoring the stares of humans who didn’t want them there. They could move quietly through the crowds, and talk. Of their clans, and the last time they saw them (years, for both of them, but they were alive, and safe, and wasn’t that what counted?) and the shame they felt for leaving, the reasons they couldn’t go back.

“But it’s not all bad,” Merrill said at last. “I do good here, helping the elves in the alienage. We never did think of them much, did we? Just about aravels and halla and the next Arlathvhen. We didn’t do enough. Now I’m doing everything I can. And for a few years, I had my Marian.”

Ellana’s chest was slowly growing tighter and tighter with the things she wanted to say. About that smoke-filled ruin in the Western Approach. About the Fade and its many-eyed monsters. About the moment Hawke turned and said  _ tell Merrill I’m sorry _ .

“And you had someone too, didn’t you?”

Ellana blinked, coming back to herself. “I’m sorry?”

“Someone you called ‘vhenan.’ The apostate mage. Marian wrote to me and said you two must have thought you were being very clever, calling each other  _ vhenan _ and expecting no one to understand, since you acted like you were only friends. I suppose it never occurred to you that that’s what I called her.” Merrill’s tone was teasing, but her eyes were sad.  _ Vhenan _ . It was a heavy word. It slowed their steps.

“I did. For a time. He’s - we’re -”

She balled her hand into a fist and did not picture the look in his eyes when he cradled her close. He would never forget her - but he wouldn’t stay.

“I - had heard some rumors. About him. About you. About the vallaslin. Some of the elves in the alienage have been talking about agents of a man who calls himself Fen’Harel.”

_ I was Solas first _ .

“Varric won’t answer my questions,” Merrill went on. “I think he fancies that he’s protecting me from something.”

“We shouldn’t talk about it here,” Ellana said.

Merrill threaded her arm through Ellana’s. They didn’t say much else as they walked back to the Hawke estate. It was pushing late afternoon.

“Would you like to come in for a bite?” Merrill asked. “Orana can make hearthcakes. I haven’t given up everything Dalish.”

“Of course.”

They ate the cakes in the small garden in the back of the house. When they were done Merrill looked faraway.

“They always make me think of Marian,” she said at last. “She was so puzzled when I first tried to make them. Well, I did make a mistake. A few mistakes. I had to explain the recipe to Orana and then she got it right, actually. But then Marian loved them. It was the first - it was the first thing I brought into this house that was really mine. That made it feel like it was our house. It was so many years ago but I still think of it every time.”

She was crying unashamedly. Only a few small tears, but tears all the same. Ellana wanted to push the table aside and crush her to her chest.

“Merrill -” she said finally. “I don’t have the words to say - I can’t -”

_ Tell Merrill I’m sorry _ .

“I’m so sorry,” she said at last, and felt empty at last.

She stood and went around the little table to crouch at Merrill’s side to hold her as well as she could. It wasn’t fair, she said to herself over and over again. It wasn’t fair that she walked out of that rift and Hawke didn’t. Ellana Lavellan got to live - she got to turn angrily on Clarel and demand that the Wardens get out of Orlais - that she got to welcome Solas into her arms that night and somehow miss again ( _ again _ ) the frantic way he buried himself in her like he could erase whatever it was that ate at his heart. It wasn’t fair that instead of Solas left grieving on the other side of that Veil, mourning the woman he would leave in a few months time in any case, the woman he would leave over and over again - that instead it was Merrill with her dark hair and green eyes and kind voice who sat here sobbing because her wife never came home.

Ellana had never regretted anything in her life as much as she regretted Adamant.

“She was so brave,” Ellana managed at last thickly. “Right until the very end. She was brave and funny and she protected us all. I wish I could have stopped her. I wish - if not for the Anchor I would have - and she wanted me to tell you that -”

“Stop,” Merrill said. “Marian did what she needed to do. I am not selfish enough to think that her life mattered more than the fate of all Thedas.”

Merrill lifted her head. Wiped her eyes. Looked around the garden. Ellana remained crouching at her side.

“We were bonded back here in the garden, you know. Marian thought that was such a quaint word. Bonded. I always called her my wife, though. I think that word meant more to her than bondmate. She liked it when I called her wife. We didn’t get much time for that, though. We couldn’t stay in Kirkwall long without someone finding out, and it was only a month later when she left for Skyhold. But I can still come back here and feel like she’s close whenever I want. Maybe that’s why I’ve never gone back to my clan.”

Ellana remembered her own bonding ceremony, Mahanon’s hands trembling in hers. It felt like a lifetime ago. She’d imagined it, of course. Solas speaking those words instead. The ancient promises. Someday, when all of it was over. But it was a fantasy. Like so many other things she’d based her life around.

“The Fade is a strange place. I made it out alive once before. Maybe…”

“Maybe.” Merrill studied her hands. They reminded Ellana of Solas’s. They were callused in the same places. “Do you know what - I haven’t gone to Sundermount in a while. Would you like to join me tomorrow? I can show you where my clan stayed. There’s still an altar to Mythal high up, if we want to make an offering.”

Ellana agreed.

The next morning they rose early, wrapped their feet, packed salted jerky and fresh berries, and set out for Sundermount, pretending they were two ordinary Dalish girls.

They told stories on the way of the Arlathvhens they remembered, comparing notes, arguing over details. They determined they’d surely met before, when they were younger. They compared the lyrics to their favorite songs and the quirks of their individual clans. Merrill told stories of her first years in Kirkwall, and Ellana shared hers of the Inquisition.

They talked about Hawke.

Ellana didn’t have many stories to share. Her time with the Champion of Kirkwall was brief. But together they made her live again with their words.

They talked about Solas.

Ellana shared how he once set his own clothes on fire, how he painted with such scope and skill, how he always had to kiss her one more time before bed or parting. How his vengeance cast down gods and sundered worlds and how he took the vallaslin from her face with such tenderness, kissed her and called her beautiful, and then left her in that glen. How he was always, always leaving. How he was Solas first, before anything else.

She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she expected from Merrill when she explained all that Solas had revealed. She was First to a Keeper, and therefore even more intimately connected to the tales of an Elvhenan that never was than Ellana had ever been. But she’d also risked possession and death to restore one small piece of that world, had seen no sacrifice as to great or to small to restore their people’s rightful place -

“I think we all have to decide for ourselves what this means,” Merrill said at last, when the tale was done. “It’s so much to take in. To consider. And so many pieces are missing… And for you - Ellana.” She said her name with sudden urgency. “You had to see all of this firsthand. You had to hear it from the man who said he loved you. How do  _ you _ feel?”

Ellana looked away. There was no word for what she felt. No word that she knew in Elvhen or Trade or any other tongue.

“I told you. I don’t feel very Dalish anymore.”

“No.” Merrill stopped walking. Ellana turned back to face her. “You are Dalish. No one can take that from you. Least of all the Dread Wolf. Being Dalish isn’t wearing vallaslin or sleeping in an aravel or praying to Mythal. We are the last of the Elvhen. Never again shall we submit. If you keep that in your heart - if you keep fighting as I do for  _ all _ our people - then you  _ are _ Dalish.”

It was a naive sentiment, perhaps. There were few Dalish who would agree with her. But it made Ellana’s heart a little lighter.

“Thank you,” she said. Merrill only nodded, decisively, like the question was settled once and for all.

“He really did love you?” She asked a bit later. They were close to where her clan had camped - where there would have been outward-facing statues of Fen’Harel.

_ No matter what happens - what we had was real _ .

“Yes,” Ellana said. “He really did.”

“No wonder you can’t go back to your Keeper,” Merrill said with a shake of her head. “I don’t think I could look Marethari in the eye and tell her I’d let the Dread Wolf take me, either.”

Ellana laughed, full up from her belly, so hard she had to set down the pack she was carrying and lean, wheezing, against a boulder. She laughed harder than she had in months, until there were tears in her eyes that she had to wipe away.

They walked all the way up to the altar Merrill had spoken of, for the view if for nothing else. It was sweaty work, the kind Ellana enjoyed. She had so few opportunities to use her body as a tool now - and that had always been her favorite kind of work. Scouting, climbing, foraging, hunting. She wrote reports now. Attended parties. It was good to feel her muscles ache and to reap the reward of the view: the mountain green below them, the blue slash of the Wounded Coast, and the gray stone of Kirkwall even further out. Looking at the altar, Ellana couldn’t help but wonder about Morrigan, about Flemeth. Where were they now? If they made an offering, would one of them appear?

“I came here a lot after I got word from Varric about what happened,” Merrill said. “I was angry at the Creators. Angry at Marian. Angry at you. I’m not angry anymore. People will always tell her story, however it ended.”

The breeze picked up. It carried the scent of trees and saltwater.

“I am,” Ellana said. “Angry. And afraid.” 

Merrill looked to her, but Ellana didn’t meet her gaze. She thought of Hawke instead. Of a woman who had sacrificed so much with so little hesitation. She thought of all the times she’d wanted to simply lay down her head and stop fighting since the Exalted Council. She thought of Solas.

“I have so much work to do,” she said at last.

Merrill frowned, pursed her lips, and then finally nodded. “Yes. I suppose you do.”

Halfway down the mountain they managed to pretend they were ordinary Dalish women once more. They traded more stories, more laughter. They drank in the twilight calm. They got back to Hightown, and parted with another tight embrace.

“Dareth shiral, lethallan,” Merrill said.

“Dareth shiral,” Ellana replied.

Ellana carried Merrill with her when she left Kirkwall a few days later. Just as she carried Hawke - just as she carried Solas. She carried all of them, and hoped she was strong enough to bear the weight, to do what needed to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts, suggestions, comments and general discussion more than welcome here or on my [Tumblr](https://buttsonthebeach.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
